NY Mets rumors revisited: The Starling Marte trade that never happened

If you’re frustrated with the performance of Starling Marte this season, you’re not alone. New York Mets rumors of a potential offseason trade were shared as they looked to dump the outfielder turned DH in the final year of his contract.

It’s never easy to find a taker for an overpaid veteran unable to pay the field or provide much offense. What’s more, Marte’s annual trip to the IL since joining the Mets in 2022 would have any team hesitant to add him to their roster.

Mets rumors of a possible swap with the Kansas City Royals would have sent Marte and some cash to the AL Central contender. How would things have looked if it did happen?

Revisiting the Mets rumors of a Starling Marte trade to the Royals

All details of the trade aren’t known because we’d have to speculate about the cash included. The Mets would have undoubtedly needed to eat a large portion of Marte’s deal, if not the whole thing. In return, they would have received veteran reliever Hunter Harvey.

Harvey was a 2024 trade deadline piece moved from the Washington Nationals to the Royals. Two good years with the Nationals in 2022 and 2023 had the Royals overlooking the mediocre 4.20 ERA he had at the time of the trade. He’d offer them just 5.2 innings before hitting the IL.

The injury bug has been present yet again for Harvey in 2025. He tossed 5.1 innings of shutout baseball with 1-hit allowed before going back on the IL in early April. There’s no telling if he would have been on the IL for the Mets as well. Given how battered he has been since first joining the Royals, we can come to the conclusion that an injury was inevitable.

This doesn’t do much to convince Mets fans they’d prefer this trade never took place. Marte has been unsatisfactory in his part-time role which began as the right-handed half of a DH platoon with Jesse Winker and has now devolved into an even more diminished role.

Through 88 plate appearances, Marte is batting .200/.307/.320 with 3 doubles, 2 home runs, and 12 RBI. He has stolen 3 bases in as many chances. His biggest downfall has been the inability to mash lefties. Just a .192/.323/.346 slash line against them so far has him practically unusable in those spots as well.

There, obviously, wouldn’t have been many takers for Marte in the offseason. The Royals failed to bite on making those Mets rumors come true even if they might’ve been able to find him at-bats. Their outfield situation isn’t great and the DH spot hasn’t been a source of major production from Vinnie Pasquantino or Salvador Perez.

Marte is an obvious DFA candidate on the Mets roster. Could he also be a salary dump they swap for another bad contract or even a minor league flier?